JAMESTOWN TO BRUNSWICK COUNTY
JAMESTOWN
In 1606 the king of England, James I, granted a private company of investors the right to establish another colony m Virginia. The London Company hoped to profit from the export of forest products and precious metals.
Three company ships set sail from England in December. After an unusually lengthy voyage, the 104 colonists arrived at the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay in April of 1607. They sailed up the James River (named after their king) in search of a suitable place for a settlement. They chose a small peninsula jutting out into the river some 40 miles inland. The water near the shoreline was deep. Being able to bring their large ships close to shore made unloading easier, but the site was a poor choice overall. Clean drinking water was not available there, and the surrounding land was low, swampy, and a breeding ground for disease.
They named the colony Jamestown. The settlement began under a communal arrangement. The London Company owned all the land, and the settlers were expected to work for the company and for the welfare of the group for a certain number of years.
The conditions were formidable, and provisions brought from England were inadequate. Most of the settlers were English gentlemen from upper-class families and lacked the necessary skills to survive in a wilderness. They were unaccustomed to manual labor, and many believed that such work was beneath them. After building a fort and a few simple structures inside the one-acre enclosure, time and energy were wasted searching for gold, which did not exist in the area. Within six months half the colony had died from disease or starvation.
The arrival of supplies and more settlers from England over the next two years, including the first women, helped only temporarily.
Most of the new settlers were equally ill-suited to the demands of the colony. Food shortages were persistent problem. Captain John Smith assumed leadership of the colony and imposed strict discipline that included the warning: “He that will not work shall not eat. Smith kept the colony in reasonably good condition until a gunpowder burn forced him to return to England for treatment.
The winter after Smith’s departure was known as “the starvmg time.” The situation became so desperate that settlers ate weeds and rats to survive. When supply ships arrived in May of 1610, only 60 feeble colonists were left alive. Given the seemingly hopeless situation, the commander of the ships thought it best to load up the colonists and return to England. Before reaching the mouth of the James River they were met by three ships arriving from England with abundant provisions, healthy settlers, and a new leader. The Jamestown survivors were ordered to tum back and try again with the new arrivals.
Life in Jamestown gradually improved, and other settlements were established nearby. Relations with the Indians were friendly at times and hostile at others. In 1614 one of the colonists, John Rolfe, married Pocahontas, the daughter of the most powerful Indian chief in the area. Their marriage brought temporary peace with the Indians.
Allocating land to the colonists for their private use had a dramatic effect. Settlers worked harder on their own land than they did on land that belonged to the company. Food shortages became a thing of the past. Tobacco also played a major role in establishing the colony. The plant grew well in Virginia, and the demand for tobacco in England gave Jamestown its first cash crop.
It took years for the colony to become secure, but Jamestown continued and took its place in history as the first permanent English settlement in America.
In 1619 representative government was introduced when delegates from Jamestown and the surrounding settlements met to make laws for the entire Virginia colony. Their assembly, known as the House of Burgesses, was the first legislature of elected representatives in the New World.
As for Pocahontas – in 1616 she and her husband and their infant son sailed to England where she was a celebrated visitor. The following year, just as the family was setting out on the return voyage to America, Pocahontas became seriously ill and died at the age of 22. She was buried in England.